When renovating your bathroom, it pays to know what’s hot and what’s not in contemporary bathroom design. That’s why we asked Nicky Kingston, Stylist for bathroom experts VictoriaPlum.com, to give us her top 5 bathroom trends for 2018.

Vibrant colours

Remember those terrible avocado bathroom suites from the 70s and 80s? Whether it was your grandparents or even your parents that owned one, homeowners have played it safe in recent times, employing a more neutral colour scheme for their bathrooms. These days, you’re more likely to find a monochrome palette rather than anything too adventurous.

However, this is all set to change in 2018, as designers start throwing caution to the wind! With Pantone announcing “ultra-violet” as their colour of the year, expect to start seeing purples and turquoises being used as a primary base colour in bathrooms up and down the country. Gold is also a colour that has caught the imagination (which I’ll discuss later).

A very simple way to introduce a primary colour into your bathroom design is by painting a wall and adding accessories in the same shade. Towels, bath mats and blinds can all be used to great effect.

A gold standard décor

Even before Great Britain’s record medal haul at the recent Winter Olympics, gold has been touted as the colour to look out for in interior design this year. And with bathrooms there is so much you can do with this precious metallic finish!

Of course, I’m not suggesting you go overboard and end up with a bathroom that looks like it belongs to some power-crazed military dictator. There are more subtle ways to give your bathroom the Midas touch.

Chrome taps and showers have been the mainstay of bathrooms for a long while, but we are now seeing more and more homeowners opting for gold-coloured finishes. Metallic tiles are also proving popular, with golds and silvers combining to create a glittering and quite glamorous back drop to that relaxing soak in the bath. You can even add matching gold accessories, to create a bathroom design that wins hands down.

Get smart

No longer just a niche interest of gadget-obsessed geeks, smart homes have really begun to take off in a big way. With millions of Amazon Alexa devices snapped up over the past 12 months, coupled with Apple’s new HomePod, it looks like many of us are finally embracing smart technology to run our homes. With this in mind, it is now the bathroom’s turn to take advantage of this new technology.

Digital showers are certainly getting smarter, with the ability to set a constant temperature and even switch easily between different outlets. However, homeowners are now demanding more from their bathroom experience.

New smart bathroom systems, like VictoriaPlum.com’s very own SmarTap, are now providing people with a personalised experience that can be controlled via their phone or even through voice activation. These smart bathroom systems not only help save water and energy, they also update automatically so features can be added and improved well into the future.

Funky floors

Boring flooring will become a thing of the past in 2018. Many people are now tearing up their tired old lino and jazzing things up with a feature floor.

The best way to approach this is to use feature tiles. There are so many different designs, patterns and colours to choose from, you’ll be spoilt for choice.

Victorian style tiles are popular, with ornate patterns that look elegant, whilst geometric patterns can be used to complement a multitude of styles, like Art Deco. Your tiles don’t even need to be rectangular or square in shape. There are many interesting shapes you could try like hexagons or even circles.

Choosing a coloured grout instead of the usual white is another way to funk up your flooring. Use a black grout to make white tiles stand out or choose a shade that works with your main bathroom colour.

Wood effect tiles will give the natural appearance of wood without any of the maintenance issues that real wood can bring.

Green for go

As well as getting smarter, our homes appear to be getting greener, with house plant sales at an all-time high.

Many modern homes have very little in the way of green space, and for those living in urban flats, the situation can be even worse. Therefore, it’s hardly surprising that many of us are using our green fingers to great effect when decorating our home interiors.

The benefits of houseplants have long been appreciated, but it is only in recent times that their use has seen a revival. In the bathroom, you can create a totally tropical look and feel by adding plants that thrive in warm and humid conditions. Aside from the usual suspects, like Spider Plants and Aloe Vera, why not add a Kentia Palm which thrives in low light or a Boston Fern which loves moisture. If you’re short on surfaces, add some hanging planters instead.